One major difference between the written story and the film is the characters surrounding Jefferies. In the writing, he has a caretaker named Sam who would be his mobile accomplice. Within the film, he has two women in his life. One was a nurse named Stella and the other was his girlfriend Lisa. The film gives both women a generous amount of screen time in the beginning and also gives the viewer a better understanding of the protagonist’s personality in comparison to the reader. However, even with more visual cues provided, the writing allowed the reader to explore Jefferies’ critical thinking. Furthermore, it is known right away in the film as to why he is always looking out into the courtyard all day. He is seen with a cast on one leg and sitting in a wheelchair. It is also known of his occupation, which is photography. Within the writing, it was not known of what job he held and why he was wheelchair ridden. It was only briefly mentioned at the end when a doctor comes in and says that Jefferies could “take that cast off [your] leg now.”

     Minor differences within the written story and the film is that it seemed as if the neighbors each had their own story in the film. Each had their own close ups and follow ups and the attention that Jefferies gave them by the panning of the camera is apparent. The viewer’s point of view when Jefferies was looking out the window was wherever the camera shot. This gave the neighbors a larger role to the overall film whereas in the story, they were briefly mentioned and did not seem as important. In most of the short story, he had only regularly observed Thorwald. Another minor difference is that Jefferies seems to be more sociable in the film as he looks to both Stella and Lisa for their opinions and tells them details of his observations. Although Sam was involved in helping Jefferies, Sam was not looked towards for advice as much. There is one final difference to as what struck me as a similar quote was when Sam stated, “Anytime you hear one of them things, that’s a sign of death someplace close around.” To which Stella constantly claims she “smells trouble.” They both were the caretakers who foreshadowed the outcome of events through different wording.